Friday, 1 October 2010

APPLE AND ELDERBERRY JELLY

After a lovely Saturday afternoon collecting elderberries and apples from a friends farm I have almost used up the bumper crop. I have already made jam, so the next thing on the list was jelly. The rest of the berries have gone to hubby and Dad to make some wine. I'll look forward to that later on in the year!
I followed a recipe in a book called The Right Way to Make Jams by Cyril Grange The recipes look nice and simple but you need to read the chapter in full to understand the process before you begin. I am after the River Cottage Preserves book now as that one has come highly recommended.

Put the berries and apples in seperate pans with just enough water to cover them. Leave them to cook. (I cooked them until the apples were quite mushy - about 30mins).
Using a jelly bag strain the juice from the berries and the apples into a bowl, this takes at least 8 hours, but I left mine overnight.
Once you have the juice extracted you need to measure the amount of liquid left and put it into a preserving pan. For every 600ml of juice you have you need to add 450g sugar, this then needs to be brought to the boil and boiled for about 10-12mins.
Clear the scum off the top with a slotted spoon and put into sterilised jars. Seal with a waxed disc and leave to cool before adding cellophane. You can also use a twist lid in place of the wax disc and cellophane.
You need to be quite quick to pot the jam as it does start to set in the pan, leaving you with a messy jelly (as I found out when potting my sage jelly!).